Institute of Pacific Relations

The Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) was a private association of ten independent national councils in ten countries concerned with affairs in the Pacific in the second quarter of the twentieth century.[1] It was identified in a unanimous 1952 report of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), chaired by Democrat Pat McCarran of Nevada, as "a vehicle used by Communists to orientate American Far Eastern policy toward Communist objectives."[2]

Carroll Quigley—the lone Georgetown University professor singled out as inspiration by Bill Clinton in his acceptance speech at the 1992 Democratic National Convention[3]—has said of the IPR and persons associated with it, "Many of these experts which were favored by the Far East 'establishment' in the Institute of Pacific Relations were captured by Communist ideology. Under its influence, they propagandized, as experts, erroneous ideas and sought to influence policy in mistaken directions.[4] ...the whole subject is of major importance in understanding the twentieth century."[5]

Organization and influence on the public and policymaking

The Institute of Pacific Relations was established in 1925 to provide a forum for discussion of Asian problems and relations between Asia and the West. It was governed by an international body in which each nation interested in the Pacific was represented and had its own national council. The constituent nations were the United States, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Netherland-Netherlands East Indies, Philippines and France. The overall international ruling body was called the Pacific Council. The IPR had two organs of expression. One was a quarterly journal called Pacific Affairs, under the auspices of the International or Pacific Council. The other was Far Eastern Survey, published by the American Council. Owen Lattimore was the editor of Pacific Affairs and Lawrence E. Salisbury was the editor of Far Eastern Survey.
The executive secretary of the American Council was Frederick Vanderbilt Field, a notorious professional Communist and popularly known as the "Millionaire Communist." Field was enlisted for the job by Edward C. Carter in 1928, when Field became assistant secretary and very soon after executive secretary. He remained a member of the governing executive committee until 1948 and executive secretary until 1940.[6] Edward C. Carter was also member of the board of directors of the American Russian Institute and a contributor to Soviet Russia Today in which Carter defended the infamous Moscow show trials during the Stalinist terror.[7] Carter tried to get Field, owner and chairman of the editorial board of Amerasia which received stolen classified documents from the U.S. Government, a commission in Army Intelligence.

To promote greater knowledge of the Far East, the IPR established a large research program, which was supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and other major corporations. Prof Quigley states there is considerable truth in the contention that the American experts on China were organized into an interlocking group of a Leftish character. It is also true that this group, from its control of funds, academic recommendations, and research of publication opportunities, could favor persons who accepted their consensus and could injure, financial or in professional advancement, persons who did not. And this group, by its influence on book reviewing in the New York Times, the Herald Tribune and the Saturday Review, a few magazines and professional journals, could advance or hamper any specialist's career. Professor Quigley goes on to state it is true these things were done in the United States by the Institute of Pacific Relations, that this organization had been infiltrated by Communists and Communist sympathizers, and that much of this group's influence arose from its access and control over the flow of funds from financial foundations to scholarly activities.[8]

Instrument of Soviet policy, propaganda and military intelligence

Mary Van Kleeck espoused the official Soviet version in 1938 of the Great purge in IPR's Pacific Affairs. Owen Lattimore defended the show trials in Moscow in the same publication as "an evidence of democracy."[9]

In July 1938 IPR had a grant of $90,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation to make a study. Carter was managing it. Lattimore wrote to Carter, “I think you were pretty cagey to turn over so much of the China section of the inquiry to Asiaticus, Han-seng and Chi. They will bring out the essential radical aspects, but can be depended upon to do it with the right touch!” Lattimore went on to say "my hunch is that it will pay to keep behind the official Chinese Communist position, " and "as for the USSR—back their international policy in general, but without using their slogans, and above all without giving them or anybody else the impression of subservience."[10] Carter appointed the three persons named by Lattimore to the study commission and defended his decision to knowingly employ Soviet communists by claiming the Soviet Union was an American ally. A U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee questioner needed to point out to Carter that this particular case occurred in 1940, when the Soviet Union, by virtue of the Communazi Peace pact, was not an ally of the United States, but an ally of Hitler.[11]

In 1948, ex-Communist Louis F. Budenz, former managing editor of the Communist Party (CP) organ The Daily Worker, told Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents that the CP had "very great influence" in the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR) and "at times controlled its policy."[12] In 1950, General Alexander Barmine, former Soviet chargé d'affaires of the Soviet Legation at Athens, told Bureau agents that prior to Barmine's 1937 defection, General Ian Berzin, head of Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU), told him that IPR was a Soviet intelligence network in China. Barmine also stated that in 1937, General Walter Krivitsky, former head of Soviet Military Intelligence in Western Europe, told him in Paris that the IPR was a "cover" for GRU in the United States.[13] Krivitsky's widow, Anonina Thomas, told FBI agents that she had been told in Moscow that sometime prior to 1937, IPR was cover for GRU agents in the US.[14] Ex-Communist Freda Utley, a former researcher at Moscow's Institute of World Economy and Politics (which would become the Soviet Council of the IPR), told Bureau investigators that it was her impression that the IPR was governed by Soviet policies, and that when officials of the American Council of IPR visited Moscow in the 1930s, it was to receive orders on IPR policies. She added her opinion that the Far Eastern section of the U.S. Department of State was influenced and guided by the policies and representations of the IPR.[15] Former Communist underground courier Elizabeth Bentley testified that her Party superior, veteran NKVD "handler" Jacob Golos, told her to stay away from the IPR because it was "as red as a rose, and you shouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole."[16]

Lattimore recommended highly Challenge of Red China, written by Guenther Stein, a member of the Richard Sorge Communist spy ring. Of Israel Epstein's Unfinished Revolution in China Lattimore said: "When he pleads his case the arguments pile up like a wedge." When Lattimore resigned he was succeeded by Michael Greenberg, a Communist Party member. Lattimore then became a member of the editorial board of another IPR organ, the notorious Amerasia magazine.
In 1944, Lattimore told Dr. Karl Wittfogel that the emperor of Japan should be removed and that as far as Korea was concerned "the best solution would be to let Russia take it over." At a State Department conference later he submitted a ten-point program which included recognizing the Chinese Communist government, turning over Formosa and Hong Kong to them and stating that no aid should be sent Chiang's forces.[17]

Amerasia

Frederick Vanderbilt Field testified that he had discussed with associates in the IPR the project of starting Amerasia in 1937. Amerasia was established with the full approval of the Institute leaders. This property belonged to Fredrick Field and Philip Jaffe, with Field holding the controlling interest. Field testified that he owned 50 per cent of the stock, while Jaffe owned 49 per cent. A good many of Field's associates in IPR were on the editorial board of Amerasia. Field named Owen Lattimore, Kate Mitchell, Harriet Moore, T. A. Bisson, Benjamin Kizer, a trustee of the Institute, and Philip Jaffe, who also was a member of the Institute and a contributor to its periodical. Joseph Milton Bernstein, a Soviet Military intelligence (GRU) contact between Soviet agents in the Office of Strategic Services and the Board of Economic Warfare, was an employee. When Field made his effort to get into Army Intelligence, it was written on the letterhead of Amerasia, showing Field as chairman of the editorial board with Owen Lattimore and William T. Stone as members of the board. There was no change in ownership of this magazine from 1937 to 1943, when Field resigned and Jaffe took over.[18]

Sorge ring

Gen. Charles A. Willoughby who was Gen. Douglas MacArthur's chief of Intelligence in the Pacific, testified that the IPR Council in Japan was used as a spy ring by the Soviet Union. Hozumi Ozaki and Kinkazu Saionji attended the 1936 conference of the IPR at Yosemite, one as secretary and the other as an officer of the IPR in Japan. Ozaki was a journalist who enjoyed close relations to Japanese cabinet officials.

Saionji was secretary of the Japanese Council of the IPR. Saionji became a consultant of the Japanese Foreign Minister. He had access to the highest official circles and enjoyed a special intimacy with the Prime Minister, Prince Konoye. He introduced Ozaki into these circles, and both men—Ozaki and Saionji—became members of what Konoye's "breakfast group," an intimate group of high level advisers. Associated with them was Tomohiko Ushiba, Saionji's predecessor as secretary of the Japanese IPR.

It should be noted Ozaki Hozumi was a member of Richard Sorge's Soviet espionage ring in Tokyo during World War II. Maj. Gen. Charles A. Willoughby who was Gen. Douglas MacArthur's chief of Intelligence in the Pacific, wrote in Shanghai Conspiracy that Guenther Stein was also a member of this ring, as was the well-known Communist writer Agnes Smedley, also involved in the Amerasia Affair.

U.S. Office of War Information uses IPR disinformation

When, on June 15, 1943, Owen Lattimore instructed Joseph Barnes[19] to replace the non-Communist Chinese of the Office of War Information (OWI) with Communists, OWI did so. On July 14 Thomas A. Bisson, in the Institute of Pacific Relations publication, Far Eastern Survey, referred to Maoist forces as the "democratic China." The disinformation was widely repeated among journalists and academics. In July and August 1943, the Chinese Communist forces—in the midst of the war—joined with the Japanese armies to inflict a serious defeat on the Kuomintang troops allied with the United States.[20]
During World War II an IPR resource packet was adopted by 1300 public school systems, and the War Department purchased over three quarters of a million IPR pamphlets for instructing military personnel.[21]

Chinese revolutionary mass murderers hailed as "agrarian reformers"

Columbia University's Nathaniel Peffer, Owen Lattimore, Frederick Field and others, in the New York Times of May 14, 1944, wrote of China's "agrarian reformers." Vice-President Henry Wallace, celebrated July 4, 1944, in Chita, Soviet Siberia accompanied by John Hazard, Lattimore, and John Carter Vincent, on an official fifty-two-day, twenty-seven-thousand-mile junket to Soviet Asia and China and was the guest of Sergei Arsenevich Goglidze and Ivan Nikoshov, masters of the Soviet Siberian gulags.[22]

Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin repeatedly criticized IPR and its former chairman Philip Jessup. McCarthy observed Frederick Field, T.A. Bisson, and Owen Lattimore were very active in IPR and worked to turn American China policy in favor of the Communist Party of China. John Carter Vincent, John Service, Alger Hiss, and John Paton Davies all had links to IPR. Jessup in 1949 was the principal editor of the State Department "white paper" on China that abandoned Chiang Kai-chek and the Nationalist Chinese government.

Senate investigations

The 1952 Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) reviewed some 20,000 documents from the files of IPR, including letters, memoranda, minutes and reports.[23] During the Senate hearings on the IPR, 46 persons connected with the IPR were
identified as Communist Party members.[24] The finding was beyond all doubt, that the IPR was a vehicle for pro-Communist leverage on American policy in China, a strikingly different conclusion than that reached by the Tydings Committee.

The SISS discovered IPR was run by a circle of insiders, Edward Carter, Owen Lattimore, Frederick Field, and a few others. They were in constant communication, discussing lines of policy, materials to appear in newspapers, magazines and books, or the agenda for some impending conference. Connected to this inner cadre was a far-flung network of writers, researchers, speakers and policy experts, including a substantial number who moved back and forth among the IPR, the press corps, academia, and the government. Also revealed in the investigation was an extremely large number of Communists.[25]

A list of invited attendees to an IPR conference of 1942, as recommended by Philip Jessup, revealed 30-plus individuals who had been identified as members of the Communist secret apparatus. Committee counsel Robert Morris summarized the situation:

"In reply to [a] question about the 10 people who have been identified as part of the Communist organization on that . . . list recommended by Mr. Jessup, I will point out that we have had testimony that Benjamin Kizer was a member of the Communist Party, testimony that Lauchlin Currie was associated with an espionage ring and gave vital military secrets to the Russian espionage system, the military secret being, in one case, the fact that the United States had broken the Soviet code. . . .

"John Carter Vincent has been identified as a member; Harry Dexter White as a member of an espionage ring; Owen Lattimore as a member of the Communist organization; Len DeCaux as a member of the Communist Party; Alger Hiss as a member of the Communist Party; Joseph Barnes as a member of the Communist Party; Frederick V. Field as a member of the Communist Party; and Frank Coe as a member of the Communist Party."

In the final report the SISS stated:

"The IPR itself was like specialized political flypaper in its attractive power for Communists. . . . British Communists like Michael Greenberg, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley or Anthony Jenkinson; Chinese Communists like Chi Chao-ting, Chen Han-seng, Chu Tong, Y.Y. Hsu; German Communists like Hans Moeller (Asiaticus) or Guenther Stein; Japanese Communists (and espionage agents) like Saionji and Ozaki (Hozumi); United States Communists like James S. Allen, Frederick V. Field, William M. Mandel, Harriet Moore, Lawrence Rosinger, and Alger Hiss.

"Indeed, the difficulty with the IPR from the Communist point of view was that it was too stuffed with Communists, too compromised by its Communist connections. Elizabeth Bentley testified that her superior in the Soviet espionage apparatus, Jacob Golos, warned her away from the IPR because ‘it was as red as a rose, and you shouldn’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.’ "

"The IPR has been considered by the American Communist Party and by Soviet officials as an instrument of Communist policy, propaganda and military intelligence. The IPR disseminated and sought to popularize false information including information originating from Soviet and Communist sources. . . . Members of the small core of officials and staff members who controlled IPR were either Communist or pro-Communist. . . . Over a period of years, John Carter Vincent was the principal fulcrum of IPR pressure and influence in the State Department. . . . The IPR was a vehicle used by the Communists to orientate American far eastern policies toward Communist objectives. . ."[26]

Reece Committee

The Eighty-third Congress set up in 1953 a Special Reece Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations. An interesting report showing the Left-wing associations of interlocking nexus of tax-exempt foundations was issued in 1954 rather quietly.[27][28][29][30] Four years later, the Reece Committee's general counsel, Rene A Wormser, wrote a book on the subject called Foundations: Their Power and Influence.[31]

See also

External links

FBI Silvermaster file, Vol. 106, pgs. 10 - 56 pdf, April 8, 1947. 55-page report on Maynard Gertler [1] a former State Department and Office of Strategic Services employee said by the FBI to have "in his possession approximately 1,000 documents, some of which are stamped restricted, confidential and top secret." According to FBI surveillance and background checks, Gertler was a contact of Philip Dunaway, Maurice Halperin, David Wahl, Bowen Smith, and others of their circle. His academic connections included Robert Brady, Franz Neumann, Robert Lynd, and Owen Lattimore.